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Bioethics: A Third World Issue
July 30, 1997
by Dr. Vandana Shiva
Research Institute for Science, Technology and Ecology
New Delhi, India
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Dr. Vandana Shiva, well-known, much-honored physicist,
philosopher, ecofeminist director of the Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology,
vice-president of the Third World Network, and author of
several celebrated works including Staying Alive, The
Violence of the Green Revolution, and Monocultures of
the Mind, has asked that this article be put on the
internet and circulated as widely as possible.
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In a recent article entitled, "The Bogus Debate on Bioethics",
Suman Sahai has stated that ethical concerns are largely a luxury
of developed countries which the Third World cannot afford. She
calls the bioethics debate an essentially Western phenomenon.
I would like to differ with Suman Sahai on her presumptions that
bioethics is not Indian or Third World in content or substance and
that ethics is a luxury for the Third World. In fact it is the
separation of ethics from technology that is a peculiarly Western
phenomenon, and by calling the bioethics debate "bogus", Suman
Sahai is speaking like the transnational biotechnology industry
which refers to ethics as an "irrelevant concern". In fact Suman
Sahai was cheered loudest on the internet by Henry Miller of
Stanford University Hoover Institute, a right wing think tank, who
has been acting as a major spokesman of the U.S. biotech industry.
The argument that the Third World cannot afford bioethics is
systematically used by the biotech industry which states that for
the hungry, ethics and safety is irrelevant. This was also the
logic used by Lawrence Summers when he recommended that polluting
industry should be shifted to the Third World. Removing ethics
from technological and economic decisions is a western construct.
This is the imported dichotomy. The import of this dichotomy
enables control and colonization.
The separation of science and technology from ethics is based on
the Cartesian divide between res extensa (matter) and res
cognitans (mind), with the objective mind acquiring objective and
neutral knowledge of nature. It was also constructed by Hume when
he said no logical inference could be drawn from what "is" to what
"ought to be". "Hume's guillotine" was an effective instrument for
separating ethics from science (which in the empiricist and
positivist philosophy was supposed to provide an objective view of
what "is").
However, knowledge and knowing are not neutral -- they are
products of the values of the knower and the culture of which the
knower is a part. Ethics and science are related because values
are intrinsic to science. Ethics and technology are related
because values shape technology, they shape technology choice, and
they determine who gains and who loses through impacts of
technology on society.
There are a number of reasons why bioethics is even more important
for the Third World than for the West. Firstly, ethics and values
are distinct elements of our cultural identity and our pluralistic
civilization.
The ancient Ishoupanishad has stated,
The universe is the creation of the Supreme Power meant
for the benefit of all creation. Each individual life
form must, therefore, learn to enjoy its benefits by
farming a part of the system in close relation with
other species. Let not any one species encroach upon
others rights.
On his 60th birthday His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote a message
to me after my speech on new technologies and new property rights,
All sentient beings, including the small insects,
cherish themselves. All have the right to overcome
suffering and achieve happiness. I therefore pray that
we show love and compassion to all.
Tagore in his famous essay Tapovan had stated,
Contemporary western civilization is built of brick and
wood. It is rooted in the city. But Indian civilization
has been distinctive in locating its source of
regeneration, material and intellectual, in the forest,
not the city. India's best ideas have come where man was
in communion with trees and rivers and lakes away from
the crowds. The peace of the forest has helped the
intellectual evolution of man. The culture of the forest
has fueled the culture of Indian society. The culture
that has arisen from the forest has been influenced by
the diverse processes of renewal of life which are
always at play in the forest, varying from species to
species, from season to season, in sight and sound and
smell. The unifying principle of life in diversity, of
democratic pluralism, thus became the principle of
Indian civilization.
Compassion and concern for other species is therefore very
indigenous to our pluralistic culture, and bioethics builds on
this indigenous tradition.
Secondly, bioethics is particularly significant for us because it
is the Third World's biodiversity and human diversity that is
being pirated by Northern corporations. While the Northern
corporations can afford to say ethics is irrelevant to the
appropriation of the South's biodiversity, the indigenous people
and Third World farmers whose blood samples and seeds are taken
freely and then patented and commercialized cannot afford to put
ethics and justice aside. It is in fact from Third World
communities that the bioethics imperative has first been raised on
these issues.
Thirdly, value dimensions determine the context of biotechnology
development because of safety issues. In fact, it is the Third
World or South which has introduced Article 19.3 and got a
decision within the Convention on Biological Diversity to develop
a biosafety protocol. It continues to be the Third World which is
leading the debate on the ethics of biosafety.
Bioethics and value decisions are necessary in the Third World
because biotechnology, like any technology, is not neutral in its
impacts. It carries disproportionate benefits for some people, and
disproportionate costs for others. To ask who gains and who loses,
and what are the benefits and what are the costs, is to ask
ethical questions. It is the Third World which has raised these
issues in the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is the
powerful industrialized nations which insist that bioethics is a
luxury for the Third World.
Unfortunately, Suman Sahai of the Gene Campaign has joined this
Northern chorus singing Bioethics is a luxury for the Third World.
In her paper she assumes that what is good for transnational
corporations (TNCs) is good for people, that what is good for seed
corporations is good for farmers. She gives the `Flavr Savr'
tomato as an example of biotechnology application that is
promising to the Third World and suggests that ethical and value
decisions about the `Flavr Savr' will block benefits from coming
to Indian farmers and consumers. The `Flavr Savr' is a bad example
because it was a technology that served the interests of the trade
industry that made tomatoes for prolonged shelf life. However, the
needs of corporate interests do not reflect the needs of people.
The alternative to prolonged shelf life and long-distance trade is
not the reengineering of fruits and vegetables. The alternative is
to reduce "food miles".
Cuba for example has used the crisis of the US trade embargo to
create thousands of urban organic gardens to meet the vegetable
needs of each city from within its municipal limits.
Long distance transport for basic food stuffs which could be grown
locally serves the interests of global agribusiness, not the small
farmer. Thus, while Pepsico paid only Rs.0.75 to Punjab farmers
for growing tomatoes, exporters like Pepsico receive Rs.10/- as
subsidies for transport. Without these subsidies, non-local supply
of food controlled by TNCs and produced with capital intensive
methods would not be able to displace local food production
produced sustainably with low external inputs.
Global traders controlling production and distribution worldwide
need square tomatoes and tomatoes that don't rot. Small farmers
and consumers looking for fresh produce do not. People need
locally produced food, consumed as close as possible to the point
of production.
In any case, the biotech miracles that are made to look inevitable
don't work reliably either. The `Flavr Savr' tomato was a failure
and Calgene, the company that launched it, had to be bailed out by
Monsanto. Exaggerating benefits and universalizing beneficiaries
have major ethical and economic implications. It is important to
look at the realistic achievements of biotechnology and make
ethical decisions on the basis of what biotechnology has to offer
for whom, both in terms of costs as well as in terms of benefits.
To declare ethics and values as irrelevant to the Third World in
the context of biotechnology is to invite intellectual
colonization. At worst, it is an invitation to disaster.
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Dr. Vandana Shiva can be reached via:
Research Institute for Science, Technology and Ecology
A-60 Hauz Khas
New Delhi 110 016 INDIA
http://writeshop.org/~vshiva/
e-mail: vandana@twn.unv.ernet.in
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The Suman Sahai article to which Dr. Shiva refers was originally
published in the journal Biotechnology and Development Monitor.